This story is not about innocence, but rather, it depicts a young girl for whom life has always been uprooted more or less. We know this about Charity because when she becomes desperate and lonely she returns to the Mountain, her original homelands, indicating that for her, rest is still that far in the past. In this book, we see Charity bottoming out after a long life of getting her hopes up and becoming disappointed.
The greatest disappointment in the novel is Charity's painful understanding of rejection and betrayal. Because Annabelle represents the life that Charity would prefer for her, she feels resentful of Annabelle's life, and over time, Charity almost replaces her. Her attempt to weasel herself into a betrothal is an indication that the man she picked has dubious moral standards, so when he betrays her, she must admit that in a sense, she betrayed herself first by jumping on the path of intense passion.
But it is hard for Charity to not suspect that one day, Prince Charming will rescue her from her difficult and arduous life. She doesn't know exactly what that looks like, but apparently Lucius was close enough. She jumps on that chance at intimacy and ends up pregnant, married to the father that never really was enough to replace her own emotional needs. She is forced to work through the painful intimacy with the first wrong replacement. Whose love is she secretly hoping for? Her own. Without her parents there to teach her how to love herself, she struggles to understand her deep emotions.
